Bloodstained Conscience rewrite
by The needy stranger
Summary: Tenchi's thoughts and feelings dealing with the death of Kagato. Story has been rewritten so R+R will be hugely appreciated.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Tenchi Muyo or any of its characters. (And let's be honest here, how many people would actually believe me if I said that I did own it?). I'm afraid that the people making the money off of this show are AIC and Pioneer.   
  
Blood-stained conscience. A Tenchi Muyo fan-fiction by Richard Abraham  
"You've won boy."  
  
The dying words of an evil man.  
  
Beep, beep, beep, beep  
  
Tenchi groaned and, in a sleepy stupor, switched off his alarm clock. He was feeling pretty unsettled, a fading echo of his dream only now receding. An image of Kagato disintegrating, retreating to gather strength for the coming night.  
  
Shaking the lingering sleep out of his head, Tenchi tried to gather the energy required to get out of bed. Swinging his legs out of the bed, he sat up, letting the chill from the air slap his senses awake and distract him from remembering the dream that had disturbed him.  
  
Nightmares had been haunting Tenchi every night since he had slain Kagato. Memories of his last words refusing to die like the body, taunting Tenchi long after the man's death.  
  
What were you supposed to feel after killing someone? Tenchi was confused, his feelings pulling him in two different directions.  
  
On the one hand, Kagato was an exceptionally evil man, heartless in his brutal attempts to become the single greatest power in the universe. His crimes were many and varied greatly within time and space. His hand had ended millions of lives, and souls were shattered under his tyranny.  
  
Despite this, Kagato was still a man. Human though his actions denied it. Intelligent, though its application ruthless. A person with emotions, though they were apparent only in the midst of his gleeful cruelty.  
  
Did Tenchi regret taking Kagato's life? He wasn't sure. Billions of lives had been at stake, including the lives of the people he cared about. At the time, Tenchi had seen no other option available to him. There just hadn't been enough time to work out any sort of strategy.  
  
Thinking about it, maybe it wasn't Kagato's death that Tenchi regretted. Perhaps he regretted what he became because of Kagato's death.  
  
Killer. The word ran through Tenchi's mind. Tenchi had blood on his hands now. His once innocent soul stained with the blood of another.  
  
Sighing, Tenchi pushed himself up and off of his bed. He scanned his room. Luckily, there was no sign of Ryoko. Though by the scent in the air, he knew that she had been in the room at some point during the night.  
  
Cherry blossoms. Ryoko always smelled like cherry blossoms. Tenchi spared a moment to wonder if the amount of time that she spent lying in the boughs of cherry blossom trees had anything to do with it.  
  
He had been lucky so far. If Ryoko knew about his troubling dreams, he would never be able to escape her smothering attentions. Her affectionate displays were often embarrassing for the poor boy, but that was not where the problem was. If Ryoko found out about his dreams, the whole household would eventually find out as well. Tenchi did not yet feel up to talking about this with the rest of his houseguests.  
  
There was only one person who knew of Tenchi's inner turmoil. His council had helped greatly over the past week. Tenchi knew that the guilt and uncertainty he was feeling at the moment was fractional compared to what it would have been without the aid of this man.  
  
The night after Kagato's attack, Grandfather had approached Tenchi and took him to the shrine to talk in privacy. Once there, they had both meditated until Tenchi's troubled conscience would stay silent no longer and he unloaded his soul.  
  
Katsuhito had listened patiently to his grandson. When his words had faded away, he had asked Tenchi if, given the circumstances, there was anything he could have done differently to avoid killing Kagato.  
  
After having agonised over it for over an hour, Tenchi had finally admitted that he couldn't think of anything he could have done that wouldn't have resulted in even more deaths. Kagato was seconds away from killing his friends and gaining ultimate power. No other strategy would have worked.  
  
Recollections of his first counselling session with his grandfather were interrupted as he stumbled over the only chair in his room. Rubbing his shin and grumbling under his breath about chairs and firewood, Tenchi hopped over to the door.  
  
Upon stepping out into the hallway, Tenchi had to smile as the scent of Sasami's breakfast caressed his sense of smell, tantalising his taste buds with an almost ethereal taste of the culinary masterpiece that awaited him downstairs. Eagerly, Tenchi headed downstairs and into the kitchen. On the way down, his thoughts drifted back to last night and his meeting with his grandfather:  
  
Katsuhito had frowned when he had noticed that, despite the improvement in Tenchi's demeanour over the past week, he was still harbouring doubts over his actions on board the Shoja. After an hour's meditation, grandfather had broken the silence to ask Tenchi to imagine the consequences of Kagato's victory, had he failed.  
  
It only took a moment's thought to come up with a reasonable assumption of what would have happened:  
  
Sasami would have died when Kagato had finished his capture of the Tsunami and drained it, and the goddess controlling it, of its powers, given that she was linked to the goddess Tsunami herself.  
  
Ryoko would not even have lived long enough to see that happen as she would have been drained of her life force long before. She had only just been hanging on during the final moments of the fight as it was.  
  
Aeka, Mihoshi, and Washu would have spent the rest of their lives, if not the rest of eternity trapped in the mirror realm onboard the Shoja.  
  
Countless billions would be suffering at the moment under the tyrannical rule of the evil dictator.  
  
Again, Tenchi found his mind dragged back to the present as he entered the kitchen. As usual, the only seat available was between the two women who obviously had feelings for him. They had only been together for a few weeks and already he had attracted two beautiful women, each totally different from the other.  
  
He sat down in his specially reserved seat (his own breakfast already laid out for him) and smiled at the antics being played out before him:  
  
Sasami was feeding Ryo-Ohki, who was perched on her shoulder. She giggled as the playful little cabbit took the time to nuzzle her cheek between mouthfuls of carrot.  
  
Ryoko and Aeka were displaying the one trait they had in common with each other, after their affections for him of course. Their animosity towards each other was quickly becoming legendary. Currently, they were glaring at each other above his head, arguing silently (for the moment) over who was going to get the last fish at the table.  
  
Mihoshi was happily polishing off the last of her breakfast. Looking up, and seeing the lone morsel lying on the table, Mihoshi quickly snatched it up and ate it. This, of course, turned the attention of the two previously mentioned women onto Mihoshi who gulped nervously and apologised meekly.  
  
Little Washu was silently chuckling to herself over the situation developing between the three other women. She turned to face Tenchi and, seeing his lightened mood, offered a warm smile and thumbs up.  
  
Tenchi offered her his own, small but sincere smile.  
  
It was already difficult to imagine life without the five girls before him. Life before their arrival had been plain and dull. Since his mother's death, the colours of life had become hazy, indefinable from the shades of grey.  
  
And now, despite the chaos they brought into his life, despite the frustration, confusion, danger and damage, life was fun.  
  
Sure he complained a lot (it was rather demanding work providing for Ryo-Ohki and cleaning up the carnage of a Ryoko/Aeka fight everyday), but he could no longer say his life was boring.  
  
With sudden insight, Tenchi truly realised what the death of these girls would mean to him. Each of them had somehow found a place in his heart. He would miss the colour they had brought into his life, and the energy with which they embraced life on Earth.  
  
The five people here in front of him provided more than enough justification for his deed.  
  
And while his soul would be forever stained with the blood of another, he knew that he had done what needed to be done. And he could live with that.  
  
-Fin-  
Authors notes (for those few who care)  
  
Well, this certainly was a long time in coming, wasn't it?  
  
I've planned on redrafting this story for a few months now but I always got distracted. After a bit of contemplation, I decided to post this as a separate story rather than update the old one (which is still on this site if you want to compare). Although it still has a lot of the original content in it, it's as close to a total re-write as I'm going to get with this.  
  
Basically I've expanded it to develop Tenchi's feelings a little. I know that it's still short but any longer, and I would have started babbling and losing the plot.  
  
I've also changed the ending. The old ending still makes me cringe and I can't believe I let that slip through my proof reading.  
  
Anyway, I hope that I've done the re-write justice and that you all enjoyed the read.  
  
As always reviews are not only helpful, but also necessary in order to help me improve my writing and letting me know if I'm doing something right. So please let me know what you think.  
  
While I enjoy writing fan fiction (for the most part), I'm finding it difficult to do my Tenchi fics. Maybe when I finally find a region 2 copy of the OAV episodes I'll get back into the mood like I was when it was being aired on Cartoon Network. It's difficult for me to find inspiration when I don't have access to the episodes.  
  
Until then, I think I'll concentrate on writing for a series that I do have most of the episodes for. Although I'll correct any mistakes that I (or you) pick up in the near future.  
  
See you soon, hopefully. 


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